Disquiet Junto Project 0692: Combust a Move

The Assignment: Make music using fire for the rhythm track.

There is just one step for this project: Record a piece of music in which the sound of fire — match, burner, cigarette, etc. — provides the primary source for the rhythmic track.

. . .

Deadline: Monday, April 7, 2024, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are.

Details at https://disquiet.com/0692/

Disquiet Junto Project 0692: Combust a Move

This is the sound of my gas stove igniting -- spliced, looped, and filtered. The industrial tone of the piece is inspired by a variety of sources: Gilded Age/early 20th century sounds (factories, railroads, typewriters); the factories making the droid army in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and the Clone Wars series; the David Lynch film Eraserhead; Bjork's 2007 single "Earth Intruders," produced by Timbaland. 

More on the 692nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Combust a Move — The Assignment: Make music using fire for the rhythm track — at https://disquiet.com/0692/

disquiet0692

Edited, mixed & mastered on 03 Apr 2025 by Jim Lemanowicz at Blissville Electro-Magnetic Laboratories of Massapequa, USA. 

Synths, samples, piano, effects. 

This piece uses a few bits of samples from Craig Smith’s Vintage Fire pack, which was taken from nitrate optical recordings from the 1930s & 40s. 

(https://freesound.org/people/craigsmith/packs/27308/)

Photography - Jim Lemanowicz, 07 Aug 2016, Massapequa, NY, USA

©2025 Jim Lemanowicz

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This original version of “First National” was submitted as part of Disquiet Junto Project 0692: Combust a Move. The Assignment: Make music using fire for the rhythm track.

More on the Disquiet Junto at: disquiet.com/junto/

More on the 692nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Combust a Move — The Assignment: Make music using fire for the rhythm track — at https://disquiet.com/0692/

#disquietjunto #disquiet0692 #piano #memorymoog #soundart #electronicmusic #sounddesign #ableton #combust #fire

First National Dander (disquiet0692)

This track is made up exclusively of recordings of sounds made with matches - scraping, striking, rattling, etc, with extensive manipulations of pitch, tempo and dynamics, multiple repetitions and various fx.

More on the 692nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Combust a Move — The Assignment: Make music using fire for the rhythm track — at https://disquiet.com/0692/

Matchplay (disquiet0692)

Disquiet 0692 called for us to record the sound of fire and use it as a percussion layer in a composition.

I broke out my trusty stereo field recorder and captured the sounds of match strikes, a lighter, a gas stove, a gas furnace, and a wooden-wicked candle. I did minimal sonic processing on the samples, mainly touches of distortion here and there. All of the samples except the candle were loaded into a custom sampler set up and programmed as a drum kit. The drum pattern is supported by a full-length recording of the candle, processed rhythmically with a combination of a highly sensitive noise gate, beat breakers, step FX, delay, and quantization.

The percussion is the center of the piece, but there's also some vintage analog synth goodness in the background. All of the synth parts were played and manipulated on a Moog Minitaur, my current favorite desktop analog synth.

More on the 692nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Combust a Move — The Assignment: Make music using fire for the rhythm track — at https://disquiet.com/0692/

Candle Magick (disquiet0692)

This is my submission to this week's Disquiet Junto assignment.

More on the 692nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Combust a Move — The Assignment: Make music using fire for the rhythm track — at https://disquiet.com/0692/

Combustion Dub [disquiet0692]

Disquiet Junto Project 0692: Combust a Move
The Assignment: Make music using fire for the rhythm track.

While tidying up unfinished tracks I stumbled upon a somehow phasered pad that I liked very much and for which I have long forgotten what I once did it for and how. I did not want to delete it, but I was not able to do something with it either. The unruly sound simply rejected all my attempts to add something. But as much as I liked for itself (even in its original lenght of around 20 minutes) I wanted to do more with it. Then I was tidying up my mails and found the disquiet junto prompt. I downloaded a fireplace and added it to the pad - and I liked it. There was some optimizing, like the fireplace goes thru a gater (adding a slightly straight rhythm) and there is a decrackle plugin set to "output crackle only" (to reduce the noise without loosing the high frequencies), and there is a smoking person in the room.

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Fireplace CC0 by 16FThumaF
https://freesound.org/people/16FThumaF/sounds/499032/
Thank you!

Smoking female CC0 by Roses1401
https://freesound.org/people/Roses1401/sounds/442639/
Thank you!

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Track image by Dall-E

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More on the 692nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Combust a Move — The Assignment: Make music using fire for the rhythm track — at https://disquiet.com/0692/

Discussions
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free floating firespace [disquiet0692]

Ambient electronica, Berlin School, Chillout & Kosmische Space Musik from Munich, Germany. ► Soundcloud is my musical diary - expect lightfooted drafts, soundchecks, playthings & misfits here. ► Go Bandcamp for finished pieces & more serious musical works.

free floating firespace [disquiet0692]

Krakenkraft & Etherkraken